BELOVED, . . . KEEP YOURSELVES IN THE LOVE OF GOD" (Jude 21)
We are to 'keep ourselves in the love of God.' In the consciousness and warmth and power of it we are to dwell. We are persuaded of course with Paul that nothing "shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39). His love has a firm hold on us, and He will never let us go. But we are also to have a firm hold upon it in the quiet recesses of our hearts. We are to be bathed in it, just like a bucket or other vessel which has been flung into the ocean is in it. Then it is in the ocean, and the ocean in it. So if we "keep ourselves in the love of God," the Love of God will be in us, imparting its beautiful character to our lives. -- F. B. Hole
It is as though I say to my child, "Keep in the sunshine." The sun shines whether we enjoy it or not. And so God's love abides unchanging. BUT WE NEED TO KEEP IN THE CONSCIOUS ENJOYMENT OF IT. Let NOTHING make the tried soul doubt that Love! Circumstances cannot alter it. Difficulties cannot strain it, nor can even our own failures. The soul needs to rely upon it, and thus be borne in triumph above the conflict and all the discouraging episodes incident to the life of faith. -- H. A. Ironside.
You cannot keep God from loving you, although you can put up an umbrella or a roof so that you will not feel the warmth or the comfort of God's love. Jude is saying, "Keep yourselves out there in the sunshine of God's love. Let His love flood your heart and life. -- J. Vernon McGee
Brethren, if we more fully believed that we can keep up, amidst all the dust and struggle of the arena, the calm sweet sense of God's love, our lives would be different. Nightingales will sing in a dusty thicket by the roadside, however loud the noise of traffic may be upon the highway. And we may have, all through our lives, that song, unbroken and melodious. The sub-consciousness underlying our daily work, 'like some sweet beguiling melody, so sweet, we know not we are listening to it," may be ever present with each of us in our daily work, like some 'hidden brook in the leafy month of June,' that murmurs beneath the foliage, and yet is audible through all the wood. And what a peaceful, restful life ours would be, if we could thus be like John, leaning on the Master's bosom. We might have a secret fortress into the central chamber of which we could go, where no sound of the war in the plains could ever penetrate. We might, like some dwellers in a mountainous island, take refuge in a central glen, buried deep amongst the hills, where there would be no sound of tempest, though the winds were fighting on the surface of the sea, and the spindrift was flying before them. It is possible to "keep ourselves in the love of God." And if we keep in that fortress we are safe. If we go beyond its walls we are sure to be picked off by the well-aimed shots of the enemy. So, then, that is the central command for the Christian life. -- Alexander MacClaren
"And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him" (I John 4:16).